Yellowknife grandma to paddle 2,000 km solo to Nunavut

A Yellowknife woman says she's chasing her dream as she embarks on her third solo kayak voyage, a 2,000-kilometre voyage along the Arctic coast.

Diane Haché is a 57-year-old grandmother who loves adventure.

Haché has worked for seven years at the Diavik diamond mine, but she quit her job to attempt to paddle from Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., to Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, this summer.

She hopes to complete the 2,000-kilometre voyage in two months.

“It's just a dream,” said Haché. “You have to follow your dreams. I have seen people, best friends dying left and right. I don't want to have any regrets.”

She is fully aware of the hazards she may face.

“I understand very well where I am going and I may not come back,” she said. “I am not scared of Mother Nature. I think it is all common sense to deal with the waves. Get to shore. Get the hell out of there. Get to security. The only thing I am scared of is the bears.”

Haché has packed her kayak with carbohydrate-rich foods such as pasta, rice, and granola. She'll collect her drinking water along the way from freshwater streams emptying into the Arctic Ocean.

This is not Haché's first northern adventure.

In 2009 she paddled the Mackenzie River from Fort Providence, N.W.T., to Tuktoyaktuk, an accomplishment she is very proud of. The year before she paddled from Yellowknife to Enterprise, N.W.T.